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Electronic Theses and DissertationsUC Santa Cruz

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Title:The Just Intonation Guitar Works of Lou Harrison, James Tenney, and Larry Polansky

Author:Fiore, Giacomo

Acceptance Date:2013

Series:UC Santa Cruz Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Degree:Ph.D., MusicUC Santa Cruz

Advisor(s):Beal, Amy C

Committee:Miller, Leta, Polansky, Larry

Permalink:https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7nc23344

Abstract:

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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIASANTA CRUZ

THE JUST INTONATION GUITAR WORKS OF LOU HARRISON, JAMES TENNEY, AND LARRY POLANSKY

A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

in

MUSIC

by

Giacomo Fiore

June 2013

The Dissertation of Giacomo Fiore is approved:

___________________________Professor Amy C. Beal, chair

___________________________Professor Leta Miller

___________________________Professor Larry PolanskyDartmouth College

_________________________________Tyrus Miller Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies

Table of Contents

List of Musical Examples, Figures, and Tables

Abstract

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter One: The Just Intonation Resophonic Guitar and Lou Harrisons Scenes from Nek Chand

Chapter Two: (re)Fret Not! James Tenneys Music for Guitars

Chapter Three: Exploring Fertile Ideas: The JI Guitar Music of Larry Polansky

Conclusion: Crossing Borders and Musical Genres

Appendix I: Performance Score to Larry Polanskys 85 Chords

Bibliography

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List Of Musical Examples, Figures, and Tables

Figure 1.1 Illustration from one of John Dopyeras patents for the tricone resophonic guitar.

Example 1.1 Harmonic series on G up to the 13th harmonic, with the Nek Chand mode indicated.

Table 1.1 Interval inventory for Scenes from Nek Chand

Example 1.2 Open strings and harmonics of a guitar in DADGAD tuning.

Example 1.3 Sample tuning sequence using harmonics and open strings.

Example 1.4 Opening motive from The Leaning Lady

Example 1.5 Jhala-like passage featuring the alternation of far and more consonant intervals in The Leaning Lady.

Example 1.6 Fading of more pungent intervals in The Leaning Lady

Example 1.7 Opening motive of The Rock Garden.

Example 1.8 Syncopated retransition in The Rock Garden.

Example 1.9 Refrain x and y in The Sinuous Arcade with Swings in the Arches

Example 1.10 Variance in last measure of refrain y to lead seamlessly into following verselet.

Example 1.11 Final gesture of The Sinuous Arcade with Swings in the Arches.

Figure 1.2 Lattice diagrams for the Nek Chand mode (above), and Bill Alvess first 12-note tuning proposal (below).

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Figure 1.3 Slyes final tuning scheme for Scenes from Nek Chand.

Table 1.2 Side-by-side comparison of proposed and final tunings.

Table 1.3 List of known pieces for the refretted resophonic guitar as of May 2013.

Figure 2.1 (2,3,5) harmonic space, with octave axis.

Figure 2.2 Poster for the premiere of Harmonium II

Example 2.1 HP17 aggregate in Harmonium II

Example 2.2 Opening of Harmonium II, highlighting the microtonal creeping of pitches from one guitar to the other.

Example 2.3 Rearrangement of primes 3 and 11 in different chord voicings in Harmonium II.

Example 2.4 Contraction of voicing in the final measures of Harmonium II.

Example 2.5 Rhythmic structure of the opening unison canon in Septet.

Example 2.6 Superparticular ratios of effective note articulations in Septet.

Example 2.7 AH11 and EH7 aggregates in Septet.

Example 2.8a Harmonic simplification leading to modulation, Septet.

Example 2.8b Modulation pivot detail, Septet.

Example 2.9 Sounding out of EH7 sonority in section IV, Septet.

Table 2.1 Main 72TET pitches used in Water on the Mountain...Fire in Heaven, their corresponding just ratios, and deviations in cents.

Table 2.2 Inventory of modulation root movements in Water...Fire.

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Figure 2.3 Plotting of HD value of each new root from original tonal center, and of HD value of each new mode, over the duration of Water on the Mountain...Fire in Heaven.

Figure 2.4 Random Walk in 72TET equivalent of (3, 5, 7) harmonic space

Figure 2.5 Hexagrams and parametrical status for Water...Fire.

Example 2.10 Opening segment of Water...Fire, transcribed to show sounding pitches.

Example 2.11 Basic gamut for Spectrum 4.

Table 2.3 Guitar pitches as open strings and harmonics 25, Spectrum 4.

Example 2.12 Upper octave of gamut in Spectrum 4; white noteheads indicate pitches introduced by the guitar.

Example 2.13 Opening of Spectrum 4.

Example 2.14 Recurrence of unpitched percussion events in vibraphone part.

Figure 3.1 Program for Polanskys two senior composition recitals at U.C. Santa Cruz, 1977.

Example 3.1 Harmonic/tempered pitch juxtaposition in ...getting rid of the glue...

Example 3.2 Guitar solo section in Rue Plats, with intonation left up to the performer (bending/fingering).

Example 3.3 Guitar tuning for The Worlds Longest Melody

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Example 3.4 Combined harp and guitar tuning for The Worlds Longest Melody. Black noteheads indicate harp notes, diamondheads guitar notes, and unfilled ovals shared notes between the instruments.

Table 3.1 Beat and phrase structure for The Worlds Longest Melody

Example 3.5 Excerpts from sections of The Worlds Longest Melody, highlighting the gradual increase in size between adjacent steps.

Example 3.6 Guitar and Strings tuning for Yitgadal

Example 3.7 Guitar tunings for 9 Events and 10 Strings (9 Events)

Example 3.8 Diagram outlining pitch substitutions in Psaltery.

Table 3.2 Sample tuning for the JI resophonic guitar in freeHorn; bolded cells indicate notes in tune with the generated harmonic series, up to the 11th harmonic of each.

Example 3.9 Harp and Guitar tunings for Preamble

Example 3.10 Section II from Preamble, reduced to show morphing between harmonic series.

Example 3.11 Changing meters matching harmonic numbers in Section III of Preamble.

Example 3.12 Tunings for duo (a) and solo (b) versions of ii-v-i.

Example 3.13 Guitar tunings for toovviivfor.

Table 3.3 Fretboard tuning and interval inventory for The Schneider Variations, one column for each of the instruments three full octaves.

Example 3.14 Variation VIII from The Schneider Variations manuscript. Courtesy of Larry Polansky.

Example 3.15 Cross-string passagework in Dismission of Great I

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Table 3.4 Fingerboard tuning for 85 Chords.

Example 3.16 Overall gamut for 85 Chords.

Example 3.17 Pivot tone and changing ratios in 85 Chords.

Example 3.18 Across the fret phrasing in Schneidertood.

Example 3.19 Highly independent singing and accompaniment part in Sweet Betsy from Pike.

Example 3.20 Rhythmic independence in the opening of Dismission of Great I.

Example 3.21 Harmonic independence in the final verse of Dismission of Great I.

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Giacomo Fiore

The Just Intonation Guitar Works of Lou Harrison, James Tenney, and Larry Polansky

Abstract

Compositions in alternative tuning systems constitute a significant repertoire in

twentieth-century U.S. music. A closely-related group of composers further

specialized in just intonationa particular kind of tuning system that utilizes whole-

number relationships between pitches, resulting in a near infinite variety of interval

sizes. Composers writing in just intonation often had to design their own instruments

(or adapt traditional ones) for the performance of the precise ratios they required;

somewhat surprisingly, a substantial number of their works employ the guitar, an

instrument most often associated with equal temperaments. The purpose of this

dissertation is to document and analyze the range of musical results achieved by a

selection of closely-related U.S. composers who brought the guitar from one

intonational context to the other.

This study is based on archival research; organology; musical and tuning

analysis; and oral histories. After establishing the relevant historical and critical

precedents in the Introduction, the dissertation develops as a series of case studies.

Chapter One analyses the genesis and legacy of a uniquely-tuned resophonic guitar,

devised by Lou Harrison (19172003) for the composition of his last completed

ix

piece, Scenes from Nek Chand. After Harrisons death, more than a dozen additional

composers were inspired to write for this organologically puzzling, yet beautifully

resonant instrument. Chapter Two focuses on the guitar music of composer and

theorist James Tenney (19342006), who created works of staggering harmonic

complexity without the requirement for custom-made or refretted instruments.

Chapter Three traces the influence of both approaches in the numerous guitar works

of composer, performer, and theorist Larry Polansky (b. 1954), who was a student,

colleague, and lifelong friend of both Harrison and Tenney. Finally, the concluding

chapter assesses the current status of intonation experiments involving the guitar,

documenting a scene that transcends the confines of the U.S. avant-garde into the

domain of popular musics around the world.

x

Acknowledgments

My gratitude to those who graciously made themselves available at various

(sometimes multiple!) stages of my research: Bill Alves, Sahba Aminikia, Sasha

Bodganowitsch, Toon Callier, Jon Catler, David Doty, Neil Harvestick, Seth Josel,

James McKay, James Moore, Tom Pauwels, Scott Richter, Gyan and Terry Riley,

Peter Yates, and Don Young. Special thanks to the composers who allowed me to

work closely on their pieces: Garry Eister, Matthew Grasso, and Ron Nagorcka; to

John Schneider, whose continuous availability and expertise facilitated some of the

most difficult findings; to David Tanenbaum, for introducing me to the marvelous

sound-world of Nek Chand in the first place.

Invaluable assistance came from the archives of Lou Harrison (Special

Collections, McHenry Library, University of California, Santa Cruz), and James

Tenney (Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections, York University, Toronto).

Extra special thanks to the fantastic archivists in charge there: Charles Hanson and

Anna St. Onge, respectively.

Thanks to Prof. Mark Katz and to Mark Davidson at the Journal of the Society

for American Music, for their help (and patience!) in preparing what would become

the first chapter of this dissertation for publicationI learned much in the process.

Gratitude and appreciation to Prof. Ben Carson, for his comments on the same

chapter, and to Dr. Michael Winter, for guiding me through analytical and algorithmic

mazes during my research on James Tenney.

xi

To the faculty, staff, and fellow graduate students in the U.C. Santa Cruz

Music Department: thank you for creating a near-perfect environment in which to

work, study, and grow. Heartfelt thanks to Prof. Leta Miller, who believed in the

importance and relevance of my research from the start, and encouraged me to aim

high; to my principal advisor, Prof. Amy C. Beal, for her patience wading through so

many drafts, and her help refining this dissertations boundaries, focus, and purpose.

Finally, for his availability, generosity, friendship, and music, thanks to Prof. Larry

Polansky.

To my family and friends, near and far, for their unyielding support; to Pap and

Bettina, for the love and sacrifices; to Paula and Petrus, for putting up with my downs

and indulging my ups: thank you and love you.

This dissertation is dedicated to the memory of Prof. Fredric Lieberman, whose work

and teachings on analysis, organology, and discourse profoundly influenced my

musical thinking and approach.

xii

Introduction

Just Intonation is the best intonationLou Harrison1

Tuning is another form of governmentJohn Cage2

Overview

Compositions in alternative tuning systems constitute a significant repertoire in

twentieth-century U.S. music. A closely-related group of composers further

specialized in just intonationa particular kind of tuning system that utilizes whole-

number relationships between pitches. The Harvard Dictionary of Music and

Musicians defines a just intonation system as any tuning that incorporates five or

more acoustically pure types of interval within the octave.3 From a more technical

standpoint, any tuning in which pitches are expressed by whole-number ratios

qualifies as a just intonation tuning. The earliest surviving musical-theoretical

treatises from Greece, India, and China include intonation and tuning concern;

through their long history, these matters also invite cross-disciplinary ties into

psychoacoustics, cognition, perception, cultural conventions, aesthetics, and

philosophy.

1

1 Lou Harrison, Music Primer (New York: Peters, 1971), 4.

2 Mark Gresham, John Cage (1991 interview) in Choral Conversations (San Carlos, CA: Thomas House, 1997). Reprinted in Richard Kostelanetz, Conversing with Cage (New York, Routledge, 2003),102

3 Just Intonation, The Harvard Dictionary of Music, Don Randel, ed., (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003), 440.

American composer, theorist, and instrument builder Harry Partch (1901

1974) was among the first and most influential composers to use a just tuning in the

twentieth century. He thought of his musical system, which he called Monophony, as

the continuation of Greek and Renaissance aesthetic ideals, uniting prosody, music,

and dance into a singular corporeal expression, in opposition to the abstractions

of Romantic European concert music.4 To realize his vision, Partch adapted existing

musical instruments and created new ones, producing an imaginative collection of

percussion and string instruments. Both his music and his book Genesis of a Music

were seminal influences on younger composers such as Lou Harrison (1917-2003)

and Ben Johnston (b. 1926). Other notable composers working in just and alternative

intonations include Terry Riley, LaMonte Young, James Tenney, Larry Polansky,

Pauline Oliveros, Rhys Chatham, Glenn Branca, Kyle Gann, and many more.

Traditionally, guitars are fretted in twelve-tone equal temperament (hereafter

12TET). Since some just intervals cannot be well approximated in equal

temperament, performing just intonation music on the guitar requires a different

approach to the instrumenteither retuning the open strings, re-fretting the

fingerboard, or a combination of the two. The difficulties inherent in the process lie in

the assumption that, for most practical purposes, only two of the following three

features can coexist: The sounding of pure, rational intervals; the possibility of

2

4 Partch introduces and defines these terms in Harry Partch, Genesis of a Music (New York: Da Capo, 1947), 9.

modulation; and a manageable number of notes per octave.5 Nevertheless, there have

been attempts, dating back to the Renaissance and Baroque eras, to realize a range of

other temperaments and tunings on fretted instruments. Theorist Juan Bermudo

(151065) and composer Luis Miln (c. 150061) advocated the use of a range of

positions for some of the Spanish vihuelas tied frets to create irregular meantone

tunings that would feature better thirds on some strings at the expense of others.6

Two hundred years later, an article presented to the Royal Society of London by

Thomas Salmon in 1705 suggested placing independent fretlets under the individual

strings of a viol in order to replicate the pure ratios of justly tuned intervals; the

author even recommended the use of a different fingerboard for each key, describing

how they are taken out and put in upon the Neck of the Viol, with as much ease, as

you pull out and thrust in the Drawer of a Table.7 The Enharmonic Guitar designed

by Thomas Perronet Thompson in 1829 as a training aid for his daughter, is another

example of alternative tuning solutions for fretted strings: It featured a myriad of

3

5 In Polansky, Daniel Rockmore, et. al., A Mathematical Model for Optimal Tuning Systems, PNM (2009): 71, the authors offer five constraints for the definition of tuning systems: Pitch Set, Repeat Factor, Intervals, Hierarchy, and Key. These constraints are a product of musical and cultural aesthetics developed over long periods of time; experimental tuning systems alter one or more of these constraints from their accepted norms, leading in turn to more or less practical solutions.

6 See Antonio Corona-Alcalde, You Will Raise a Little Your 4th Fret: An Equivocal Instruction by Luis Milan? The Galpin Society Journal 44 (1991): 245; Wolfgang Freis, Perfecting the Perfect Instrument: Fray Juan Bermudo on the Tuning and Temperament of the Vihuela de Mano, Early Music 23/3 (1995): 42135.

7 Thomas Salmon, The Theory of Musick reduced to Arithmetical and Geometrical Proportions, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 24/302 (1705), second figure. Salmons presentation is discussed in Leta Miller and Albert Cohen, Music in the Royal Society of London, 16601806 (Detroit: Detroit Studies in Music Bibliography, 1987), 17, 6667, 207; and Lindley, Lutes, Viols, and Temperament, 6869.

independently placed frets that could be switched around to allow for the performance

of pure triads in all keys. Thompsons guitar, however inventive, was far from

practical. The frets were inserted into slots and not secured to the fingerboard in any

way: Were the instrument to be turned upside down, the frets would simply fall out.8

In the twentieth century composers like Partch, Harrison, Tenney, Polansky,

and others have created an impressive body of work in just intonation for guitar,

multiple guitars, and guitar with other instruments. Some of these works call for ad

hoc, custom made instruments, utilizing a variety of historical and novel approaches,

whereas others employ inventive, non-permanent adaptations of standard guitars.

The use of guitars in this context is not haphazard. Guitars are common

instruments, and both the steel-string acoustic and electric varieties are iconic

elements of U.S. popular music. Harry Partchs works that include guitar, such as

Barstow and U.S. Highball (1941/1968 and 1943/1955), follow a period the composer

spent as a transient in California and the Southwest during the height of the

Depression. A portable and common instrument like the guitar was the perfect choice

for accompanying lyrics compiled from graffiti and late-night boxcar conversations

among Partch and his fellow travelersespecially considering its connotations as a

vernacular instrument. On the other hand, the existing just intonation compositions

for guitar belong squarely in the contemporary concert repertoire, and they offer a

unique combination of musical, theoretical, and cultural elements for criticism.

4

8 Lindley, ibid., 6869.

Limits and Scope

The purpose of this study is to identify, chronicle, and analyze a portion of the U.S.

repertoire of music in just intonation for guitar. Particular attention will be given to

the approaches taken by composers and instrument builders to adapt existing

instruments or to create new ones. The discussion will also investigate the aesthetic

and philosophical implications of these approaches, especially with regard to the

difficultyif not outright impossibilityof having any kind of fretted, stringed

instrument be accurately in tune.

The main body of this dissertation consists of three case studies focused on

Lou Harrison, James Tenney, and Larry Polansky. The reason for the selection of

these composers lies in their historical importance, the volume of their production for

guitar, and in the fact that they represent three generations of U.S. experimental

composers. Also under consideration is a more heterogeneous group of contemporary

composers, who have written more than a dozen new pieces for a specific just

intonation resophonic guitar devised by Harrison in 2002.

Finally, this study hopes to contextualize the relationship of the just intonation

repertoire for guitars with both the experimental music repertoire and the general

classical guitar literature. Up to the beginning of the twentieth century, the vast

majority of works in the classical guitar repertoire had been composed by guitarists,

and it was largely through the commisioning and editing work of performers such as

Andrs Segovia (1893-1987), Julian Bream (b. 1933), and John Williams (b. 1941)

5

that the repertoire expanded to include works by composers who did not play the

instrument themselves.9 Harrisons Scenes from Nek Chand (2002) is an elaborate

example of the composer-performer collaboration paradigm, as the commission for a

new guitar piece also yielded a uniquely retuned instrument, which in turn prompted

sixteen additional compositions by fourteen composers. Conversely, Polansky offers

new insights into the figure of the composer-performer, as his involvement with the

guitar delves deeper into technical realms, employing extended techniques and novel

tuning solutions to transcend the assumed limitations of the instrument.

There is much music fitting the criteria of the present inquiry that nonetheless

has been excluded from it; most notably, the guitar music of Harry Partch. Although it

represents an essential and undeniable precedent for the material under consideration,

Partchs works for and with guitars make up a body of music that is perhaps too great

to fit within the practical limits of this study. The list of compositions that include

adapted guitars is sizeable: Barstow, The Letter, and U.S. Highball from The

Wayward (194143, several subsequent revisions); seven pieces from Eleven

Intrusions (194950, no. 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, and 11); Ring Around the Moon (1949

1950); Oedipus (1950/195254/1967); Even Wild Horses (1952); Revelations at the

Courthouse Park (1960); And on the Seventh Day Petals Fell in Petaluma (1963

66); and Delusion of the Fury (196566). In addition, in order to offer a substantial

contribution to existing Partch scholarship, the project have to include a detailed

6

9 For a review of this historical phenomenon see Stephen Goss, The Guitar and the Musical Canon, The Journal of the European Guitar Teachers' Association (July 2000): 78.

organological analysis, including a study of the surviving instruments; a musical and

technical review of the guitar writing in Partchs scores, especially with regard to his

use of notation and tablature; and a survey of existing historical and modern

recordings. The resulting monograph-length discussion would upset the balance (and

realistically, the feasibility) of the present dissertation. As such, I chose to focus on

the approaches taken by Partchs musical heirs, and deferred the exploration of

Partchs own guitar works to a future date.

There are also numerous examples of instruments modified to play in

temperaments other than 12TETsuch as, for example, the 19TET guitars necessary

to perform the music of composers Ivor Darreg (born Kenneth Vincent Gerard

OHara, 19171994), and Easley Blackwood Jr. (b. 1933), or the numerous works

calling for quarter-tone guitars.10 As these are examples of a different compositional

aesthetic (one not always concerned with the ratios of the harmonic series), they will

not be included in my discussion.

Literature Review

The existing literature related to just intonation in U.S. music falls into three

broad categories: reviews of historical tuning systems; theoretical essays, often

written by composers working in this genre; and historical, biographical, and

7

10 See, for example, the guitar works of Mexican composer Julian Carrillo (18751965), Invocation (1998, for ensemble) by Ezra Sims (b.1928), and Renvoi/Shards (2008, for quarter-tone guitar and quarter-tone vibraphone) by Brian Ferneyhough (b. 1943).

analytical writings on experimental and mainstream concert music. A further subset of

literature consists of the several journals and newsletters that were published

primarily in California from the 1970s to the early 1990s by composers, instrument

builders, and theorists working with just intonation and other tuning systems.

Especially relevant to this discourse is the Xenharmonic Bulletin (19631992), in

which Ivor Darreg discusses several guitar fretting patterns, as well as the musical

and aesthetic properties they entail; and Xenharmonikon (19741998), which contains

theoretical and instrument-building essays by Harrison, Polansky, Ervin Wilson, and

John Chalmers. Other publications such as Interval (19781987), Experimental

Musical Instruments (19851999), and 1/1 (19862007), the official journal of the

Just Intonation Network, provide additional context for the alternative tuning

community in which all of the composers subject to this study, to one degree or

another, were involved. A text related specifically to this musical scene is David

Dotys Just Intonation Primer, which was originally published by the JI Network in

1993, and is now available directly from the composers website. The Primer

provides a terse overview of contemporary tuning theory, including models for

analysis and a comprehensive reference of technical terms, and represents an

invaluable resource for those approaching this complex subject.11

Although historical tuning surveys, such as J. Murray Barbours Tuning and

Temperament, usually stop short of the twentieth century, they still provide context

8

11 David Doty, The Just Intonation Primer: an Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Just Intonation. (San Francisco, CA: Just Intonation Network, 1993).

with their discussion of technical and theoretical approaches to the many problems of

tuning. Barbours evaluation of just intonation is quite critical, because he approaches

tuning from the point of view of common practice musical and harmonic standards.

Furthermore, he compares just tunings in terms of their deviation from the model of

twelve-tone equal temperamentan approach that, however practical, confirms the

authors theoretical bias.12 Barbours failure to appreciate just tunings from an

aesthetic or experimental point of view is even more apparent in his 1950 review of

Harry Partchs Genesis of a Music, in which he lambasts the composers system for

losing all power of transpositions and having modulation take on a different

meaning.13 It goes without saying that the point of Partchs musical and

compositional endeavors may have been lost on the older, more conservative critic.

Lindleys Lutes, Viols, and Temperaments also stops short of investigating the

past century. Nevertheless, Lindley chronicles the theoretical, organological, and

practical implementation of just, meantone, and tempered tunings on fretted stringed

instruments from the Renaissance to the nineteenth centuryincluding accounts of

some of the organological oddities mentioned previosuly.14

Another relevant historical and theoretical tuning survey is found in John

Chalmerss Divisions of the Tetrachord. Chalmers, an active member of the California

9

12 J. Murray Barbour, Tuning and Temperament: A Historical Survey (New York: Da Capo, 1972).

13 J. Murray Barbour, Review, The Musical Quarterly 36.1 (1950), 131135.

14 Mark Lindley, Lutes, Viols, and Temperaments (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984)

just intonation scene in the 1970s and 1980s, and currently an astrobiologist at the

University of California, San Diego, reviews the historical approaches from Greeks

and Near Eastern sources to the question of the division of the perfect fourth into

smaller ratios. Chalmers catalogues all possible divisions using the 81:80 syntonic

comma as a practical limit. The project, which took several years to complete, was

inspired by Chalmerss work with Harrison (who had envisioned a Great Book of

Modes for his projected Modal Room), and saw the involvement of Polansky

(who oversaw publication through Frog Peak) and of composer Carter Scholz (who

edited the text and designed the figures). As such, Divisions of the Tetrachord is a

perfect example ofand testament tothe kind of enthusiastic and meticulous

approaches taken by the members of the California tuning community.15

A much earlier work, Hermann von Helmholtzs On the Sensations of Tones

as a Psychological Basis for the Theory of Music (first English edition published in

1875) is a foundational text of modern acoustics and musical perception, as well as

their impact on music theory. Helmholtz was an advocate of five-limit just intonation

due to its acoustical purity, and argued that both singers and violinists would naturally

lean towards natural intervals, rather than tempered ones. 16 In addition to his rigorous

methodology, his discussion of acoustical phenomena such as overtones, combination

tones, and difference tones proved a fundamental influence for subsequent

10

15 John Chalmers, Division of the Tetrachord, (Hanover: Frog Peak Music, 1993).

16 Hermann von Helmholtz, On the Sensations of Tone, (Mineola: Dover, 1958), 316330.

acoustically-minded writers and composers, such as Henry Cowell and Harry Partch.

Cowells New Musical Resources is among the first and most extensive

theoretical texts by a twentieth-century composer to deal with issues of intonation.

Cowell based much of his discourse on the ratios of the harmonic series, suggesting

their application not only to the tuning of pitches, but also to the organization of

rhythm, tempo, meter, and dynamic levels. For instance, Cowell applied the 3:2 ratio

of the perfect fifth to rhythmic proportions in some of his works; he also designed the

Rhythmicon, an instrument capable of reproducing complex polyrhythms according

to the ratios of the overtone series, and realized in 1932 by musical inventor Lev

Termen.17 Most crucially, echoes of various aspects of Cowells theories can be found

throughout the works of Harrison, Tenney, and Polansky, as will be noted in the

relevant chapters.

Partchs monograph Genesis of a Music is structured as a (somewhat

opinionated) historical review of tuning practices, a theoretical/aesthetic manifesto,

and a descriptive account of his instruments and some of his compositions. The

discussion of the three guitars Partch adapted to play in his Monophonic system

represents one of the few written discussion of the instruments; however, Partchs

description lacks measurements and details of construction.18 Literature on Partch,

such as Bob Gilmores recent monograph, does not discuss these guitars

11

17 Henry Cowell, New Musical Resources (New York: Knopf, 1930).

18 For a discussion of his guitars, see Harry Partch, Genesis of a Music., 203207

extensively;19 even Richard Kassels critical edition of the 1968 version of Barstow

does not treat the guitar featured in the composition in more than a passing manner.20

Among other notable studies of Partch, Bradford Blackburns recent dissertation

analyzes the modulatory possibilities inherent in the Monophonic system, as well as

the relationship between Partchs concept of Corporeality and the kinesthetic

elements of performing on his array of custom-made instruments. Part of Blackburns

project included the recreation of some of Partchs instruments, including the

Adapted Guitar II; unfortunately, there are no organological details other than a few

pictures.21

Throughout his career, Ben Johnston has articulated his compositional

philosophy in a series of essays, recently reissued in the collection Maximum Clarity.

Johnstons contribution to the field of just intonation includes both the practical

application of theoretically infinite tuning matrices (what the composer calls

extended just intonation), and the development of a generalized notational system,

which utilizes novel accidentals derived from the successive partials of the overtone

series to indicate pitches factored by higher, more complex ratios. One drawback of

Johnstons notation is that it assumes the tuning of a 5-limit just intonation scale on C

12

19 Bob Gilmore, Harry Partch: A Biography (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998).

20 Richard Kassel, Harry Partch: BarstowEight Hitchhiker Inscriptions from a Highway Railing at Barstow, California [1968 Version], Music of the United States of America, 9 (Madison: AR Editions, 2000).

21 Bradford Blackburn, Tonal Modulation with Just Intonation; Corporeality and Musical Gesture: In the Music of Harry Partch, Dissertation (D.M.A.), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2006.

as its point of departure, requiring the use of more complex accidentals when the

music is based on a different or distant fundamental (such as an equal-tempered

pitch).22

Among other writings by composers, Lou Harrisons Music Primer concerns

itself mostly with pedagogical matters.23 Of the scholarly texts addressing Harrisons

life and works, Leta Miller and Fredric Liebermans two monographs discuss his

involvement with just intonation and instrument building in depth. In the introduction

to Lou Harrison the authors also discuss Scenes from Nek Chand (the piece for which

the just intonation resophonic guitar was created), albeit without going into great

organological detail.24 Heidi Von Gundens earlier publication on the music of

Harrison does not explore the composers use of tunings in a particularly detailed

fashion, nor does she linger on Harrisons involvement with guitars and other fretted

instruments beyond passing references.25

Until recently, one of the few monograph-length analyses of James Tenneys

works was The Early Music of James Tenney, written by Larry Polansky for the

publication series Soundings. Polansky discusses Tenneys output up to the early

13

22 Ben Johnston and Bob Gilmore, Maximum Clarity and other Writings on Music (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2006).

23 Lou Harrison, Music Primer (New York: Peters, 1971).

24 Leta Miller and Fredric Lieberman, Lou Harrison: Composing a World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), and Miller and Lieberman, Lou Harrison (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2006).

25 Heidi Von Gunden, The Music of Lou Harrison (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1995).

1980s, laying the foundation for any subsequent analysis.26 He also addresses

Tenneys theoretical work, providing a valuable commentary on both META+Hodos

(in which Tenney suggests an gestalt approach to the analysis of modern music) and

A History of Consonance and Dissonance, Tenneys survey of changing harmonic

theories from antiquity to the common practice period.27 Tenneys theoretical writings

constitute a fundamental theoretical framework for the analysis of his own and other

contemporary music. Particularly relevant to this study is the definition of harmonic

space that can be found in Tenneys paper John Cage and the Theory of

Harmony.28 This latter article, first published in 1983, is included in the 2008 issue

of the Contemporary Music Review, edited by Robert Hasegawa and dedicated to

recent scholarship on Tenney; it includes articles examining his late works as well as

the ramifications of his harmonic and stochastic theories.29 Another relevant study of

the formal and compositional aspects of Tenneys works is composer Brian Belets

dissertation, which includes a detailed analysis of Changes (1985), one of Tenneys

14

26 Larry Polansky, The Early Music of James Tenney, in Soundings 13: The Music of James Tenney (Santa Fe: Soundings Press, 1983).

27 James Tenney, META+HODOS: A Phenomenology of 20th Century Musical Materials and an Approach to the Study of Form (Oakland: Frog Peak Music, 1986); and James Tenney, A History of 'Consonance and Dissonance' (New York: Excelsior, 1988).

28 James Tenney, John Cage and the Theory of Harmony, in Soundings 13: The Music of James Tenney, Peter Garland, ed. (Santa Fe, Soundings Press, 1983).

29 Robert Hasegawa, ed., "The Music of James Tenney," Contemporary Music Review, 27.1 (2008); includes writings on Tenney by Robert Wannamaker, Michael Winter, Marc Sabat, and others.

most ambitious and harmonically complex scores.30

Larry Polanskys guitar works have so far attracted the attention of performers

more than scholars.31 In 2010 New World Records released a retrospective recording

of his compositions for guitar, which are performed regularly in Europe as well as in

the United States.32 In addition to having composed hundreds of pieces, Polansky has

also produced a wealth of theoretical and critical texts.33 As Polanskys guitar music

reflects his multiple interestsfrom intonation to algorithmic composition, from

Shaker melodies to impressive displays of virtuosityan in-depth study that relates it

to the U.S. just intonation tradition is warranted, and will address a significant gap in

the existing scholarship.

Methodology and Theoretical Framework

15

30 Brian Belet, An Examination of the Theories and Compositions of James Tenney, 1982-1985. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Michigan, 1991.

31 One of the few exceptions is the section dedicated to Polansky in Kyle Ganns American Music in the Twentieth Century (New York: Schirmer, 1997), 375380. Gann, a composer himself and an advocate of just intonation, also gives attention to Harrison and Tenney in earlier sections of the book, but (unsurprisingly) does not dwell on their compositions for guitar.

32 Larry Polansky, ZWERM, et. al., The World's Longest Melody (New York: New World Records, 2011).

33 Several of these texts, and most of his compositions, are freely available on the composers website: http://eamusic.dartmouth.edu/~larry/

This study is constructed on the basis of archival research; musical analysis of scores

and recordings; an organological analysis of the instruments modified or adapted to

play in just intonation; and oral histories.

Given that there is not one just intonation, but rather an infinite variety of

tunings employing just ratios, the theoretical and tuning systems employed by each

composer must be clearly defined. Harry Partch was one of few composers to adopt a

single, overarching tuning systemthe closed forty-three note scale detailed in

Genesis of a Music; in contrast, Harrisons, Tenneys, and Polanskys approaches

varied throughout their careers. In general terms, Harrisons output for guitar falls in

what he would call his Strict Style category, that is to say compositions employing

a single mode with a limited (and often small) number of pitches, tuned in just ratios

and without cognates. By comparison, in the works that Lou Harrison composed in

his Free Style, any particular note could vary in tuning, as pitches are determined

solely by the ratios between adjacent notes (either melodically or harmonically).

Tenneys and Polanskys approaches changed similarly throughout the years, and they

tended to incorporate a higher degree of complexity in their harmonic and tuning

endeavors. Although comparative analysis is not one of the purposes of the present

study, the theoretical works of Johnston, Doty, and the Extended Helmholtz-Ellis JI

Pitch Notation system developed by Marc Sabat and Wolfgang Von Schweinitz will

provide a common set of tools for the analysis of the entire repertoire under

16

scrutiny.34

The Helmholtz-Ellis notation system takes an approach similar to Johnstons;

however, it departs from a chain of consecutive Pythagorean fifths/fourths, as

opposed to defining every accidental in relation to C=1:1. A set of special accidentals

indicate the distance in cents between a higher-prime interval and a melodically

nearby interval, which is calculated using lower prime factors. For example, a

downward arrow turns the conventional accidental specifying a 3-limit Pythagorean

third (81:64) into its 5-limit just major third (5:4) counterpart, or 21.5; a small

numeral seven indicates the difference between the harmonic minor seventh (7:4) and

the Pythagorean minor seventh (16:9), or 27.3. The result is a precise and

unequivocal notation system that greatly benefits the analysis and performance of

complex just intonation pieces; this study will adopt the Helmholtz-Ellis accidentals

(with the addition of cents deviation when additional clarity is needed) throughout.

Archival Sources

The principal archival sources include: the Lou Harrison Archives, Special

Collections, McHenry Library, University of California, Santa Cruz; the James

Tenney Fonds, Clara Thomas Archives, York University, Toronto; the estate of James

Tenney, Los Angeles, CA; and the private archive of Larry Polansky, Hanover, NH.

17

34 The notation is introduced and explained in a document published on the Plainsound music collective website: Marc Sabat and Wolfgang Schweinitz, The Extended Helmholtz-Ellis JI Pitch Notation, Plainsound Music Edition Website, http://www.marcsabat.com/pdfs/notation.pdf

Overview of Dissertation Chapters

Chapter One focuses on the unique resophonic guitar adapted to an eleven-limit just

scale for the composition and performance of Lou Harrisons last finished piece,

Scenes from Nek Chand (2002). This instrument, which immediately reminds the

listener of various U.S. popular musics, such as Hawaiian, Country, and Blues, has

since sparked the interest of several other composersincluding Polansky, Scholz,

Terry Riley, and Ron Nagorckawho went on to produce close to twenty additional

pieces for this strange and fascinating guitar. The chapter traces Harrisons inspiration

for the piece, outlines the history of resophonic guitars since their invention in the late

1920s, and documents the composers own involvement with guitars throughout his

career. A detailed analysis of the theoretical and practical implications of the guitars

modified tuning, as well as a musical analysis of the composition itself, constitutes

the central part of this discussion. Finally, a selection of other pieces for the just

resophonic guitar concludes the chapter by offering a sample of Harrisons lasting

influence and the performance legacy of the instrument he created.

Chapter Two is dedicated to the guitar music of James Tenney and provides an

example of an alternative solution to adapting guitars to perform in just intonation.

None of the pieces discussed in this chapter requires a custom-made instrument or

any kind of permanent modification to a standard-issue guitar. After a brief

biographical and stylistical overview, Tenneys music will be analyzed in terms of its

18

theoretical and practical tuning approaches: Harmonium II (1976, 2005), Septet

(1981), Water on the MountainFire in Heaven (1985), and Spectrum 4 (1995). All

of these pieces reflect Tenneys continuing interest in the harmonic series, fitting in a

coherent context with earlier pieces such as Quintex (1972) and Spectral Canon for

Conlon Nancarrow (1974). Tenneys writing for guitar defies conventional practices,

yet remains idiomatic and accessible. Most notably, this chapter includes works that

employ higher-division equal temperments to approximate just ratios, and discusses

the techincal and aesthetic ramifications of this choice.

Larry Polanskys approach to just tunings on the guitar is perhaps the most

sophisticated of this group, due in part to his own familiarity with the instrument as a

performer and improviser. Chapter Three will analyze his large output for guitar in

just intonation, highlighting connections to the works of Tenney and Harrison, as well

as the unique preoccupations of Polanskys poetics. The guitar pieces under

consideration include both traditional and adapted guitars: The Schneider Variations

(1995); for jim, ben, and lou (1995); ii-v-i (1997); ivtoo (2000); toovviivfor (2002);

Four Voice Canon #17 (2002); Yitgadal (200304); freeHorn (2004); Songs and

Toods (2005); 10 Strings, 9 Events (2011); and 9 Events (quartet version, 2011).

The final chapter will consider some additional examples from the U.S. just

intonation guitar scene, such as the employment of a guitar with independently

moveable frets in Ben Johnstons The Tavern (19982008), and the harmonic series

compositions for electric guitar orchestra of Rhys Chatham (b. 1952) and Glenn

19

Branca (b. 1948). In addition, it will also discuss some instances of the cross-

pollination of just tunings from experimental to broader, popular music contexts.

These and other recent developments will attest to the breadth, depth, and vitality of

the just intonation repertoire for guitar, providing a fitting conclusion for this study

the kind of history that should be considered a continuing work in progress.

20

Chapter OneReminiscence, Reflections, and Resonance: The Just Intonation Resophonic Guitar and Lou Harrisons Scenes from Nek Chand.

While mother played an afternoon of Mah Jong with friends, we children listened to records or the radio. We heard a lot of Hawaiian music and I can remember the

sliding and waving guitar tones over a gap of almost eighty years. The wonderful sculpture and architecture of Nek Chand, near Chandigarh, set me to composing

three small pieces in admiration.Lou Harrison1

On a fall morning in 2001, guitarist David Tanenbaum and luthier Kenny Hill drove

to Lou Harrisons house in Aptos, California in a station wagon full of guitars.

Tanenbaum had received word from Charles Amirkhanian, director of the Other

Minds festival of contemporary and avant-garde music in San Francisco, that

Harrison had accepted a commission for a new guitar pieceon some conditions. The

composer was not interested in writing for the classical guitar, an instrument that he

found lacking in power and sustain, and favored the use of just tunings over equal

temperament.

Tanenbaums audition began with his own most prized, French-made

21

1 Lou Harrison, introductory notes to the MS score of Scenes to Nek Chand. The MS is housed in the Lou Harrison Archive, Special Collections, McHenry Library, University of California, Santa Cruz (hereafter: UCSC McHenry). The full text of this note, including the original dedications, can be accessed through the Other Minds archives, www.archive.org/details/OM8HarrisonScenesfromNikChand (sic).

classical guitar: First I tried a Friederich for him, and then Kenny and I loaded a

station wagon with lots of types of guitarssteel, twelve-string, Dobroand Lou

always said no.2 Hill then thought of Dave Scully, a Santa Cruz street musician who

performed on an old metal-body tricone resonator guitar. Hill and Tanenbaum located

the busker, borrowed his guitar for an afternoon in exchange for lunch money, and

brought it back to Harrison, who instantly and enthusiastically approved of the sound.

Tricone resonators, which were especially popular in the 1920s and 30s, use three

wafer-thin spun aluminum cones, which are connected to the strings through a T-

shaped bridge and resonate sympathetically to increase volume and projection; the

individual cones can sometimes vibrate slightly out of phase with one another,

producing a characteristic wavering vibrato effect.

Having found an acceptable instrument, Harrison composed a piece in just

intonation, inspired not only by the unique tone of the tricone resonator, which

reminded him of Hawaiian music he heard on the radio as a child, but also by the

imaginative work of Nek Chand (b. 1924), a self-taught sculptor and architect from

India and the creator of the Rock Garden of Chandigarh. Around the time of the Other

Minds commission, Harrison encountered a retrospective feature on Nek Chand in a

book dedicated to outsider art, and found the visuals, as well as the artists story,

particularly moving.3 In 1965, while working as a roads inspector for Chandigarhs

22

2 David Tanenbaum, personal communication with the author, 7 February 2010.

3 Lou Harrison, interview with John Schneider, 2002. The book Harrison refers to is likely John Maizels, Raw Creation: Outsider Art and Beyond (London: Phaidon Press, 1996), 21525.

Public Works Department, Nek Chand began developing a series of interlinked

courtyards in a greenbelt area, incorporating sculptures made of found objects and

recycled materials. Local authorities discovered this unsanctioned development in

1972; yielding to public pressure, they spared the garden from demolition and granted

the artist a permanent workforce for expansion and upkeep in 1976.4 As I will

explain, these two seemingly disparate inspirational sourcesthe resophonic guitar

used in Hawaiian music and the art of the Indian Nek Chandin fact share a

common historical link, the kind of cross-cultural connection that fascinated Harrison

throughout his life.

Scenes from Nek Chand was commissioned with funds from Los Angeles new

music patron Betty Freeman. It bears a dedication to Charles Amirkhanian, his wife

Carol Law, and guitarist David Tanenbaum, who presented the premiere on 7 March

2002 at the eighth annual Other Minds festival in San Francisco. The work was

recorded soon after, not only by Tanenbaum, but also by John Schneider, a guitarist

who has specialized in microtonal and just intonation music, and who contributed to

the difficult process of creating a just intonation fingerboard for the tricone resonator.

Both his recording and Tanenbaums were released within days of each other in June

23

4 The story as understood by Harrison can be found in Maizels, Raw Creation, 215 and 220. Iain Jackson offers a more critical account in Politicised Territory: Nek Chands Rock Garden in Chandigarh, Global Built Environment Review 2/2 (2002): 5158. It should be noted that Nek Chands work has taken on environmental and political dimensions. This is due both to Chands use of recycledbut also misappropriatedmaterials, and to the development of the Rock Garden in spite of stringent urban planning, which had been devised by French Architect Le Corbusier to showcase the city of Chandigarh as the utopian symbol of a modernized and westernized India. More (and contrasting) information on the Nek Chand Foundation can be found at www.nekchand.com and www.nekchand.info.

2003.5 As Harrisons last completed piece, Scenes from Nek Chand combines his

lifelong interests in alternative tunings, instrument-building, and cross-cultural

pollination. Perhaps most surprisingly, Harrisons visionary (if impractical)

instrument choice would be validated by the many composers who have been writing

for the just intonation resophonic guitar since the pieces premiere, thus contributing

to an alternative guitar repertoire for the new millennium.

Fretting Matters: Lou Harrison and the Guitar

Harrisons experiments with different tuning systems on the guitar date to

1952, when he sent a one-page manuscript piece, Serenado por Gitaro, to composer

Frank Wigglesworth. In an accompanying letter, Harrison suggested that the guitar

could be tuned diatonically if an instrument with moveable frets were available.6 He

might have been thinking of lutes, however; in 1952 guitars with moveable frets

would not have been easy to find (and gut-fretted lutes would have been in similarly

short supply). Harrison had been obsessed with just intonation ever since he read

Harry Partchs Genesis of a Music in 1949, and this letter shows that the possibility of

24

5 Lou Harrison, Harry Partch, et al., Just Guitars, John Schneider, guitar (Bridge 9132); Lou Harrison, Serenado. David Tanenbaum, guitar (New Albion 123); both recordings are in just intonation. There is also a more recent recording by Giacomo Fiore (GFCD 2011).

6 Harrisons proposed scale is Ptolemys Intense Diatonic, also known as the 5-limit just major scale. In harmonic and tuning parlance, limits describe the highest prime factor allowed in the computation of the intervals of a musical scale or tuning sequence. Thus a 5-limit scale only contains intervals derived from the octave (prime factor 2), the perfect fifth (3) and the just major third (5).

pure intervals on the guitar was already on his mind.7

In 1977 Harrison met Tom Stone, the inventor of a system of interchangeable

fingerboards for guitars and other fretted instruments called Switchboards. The design

allowed the player to secure a number of different fingerboards to a specially made

neck, thus enabling the use of a variety of tuning systems on the same instrument

not unlike what the English mathematician Thomas Salmon had advocated nearly

three centuries earlier in a paper presentated to the Royal Society of London.8

Fascinated with the idea, Harrison arranged to have such a guitar made to assist in the

composition of five suites for the instrument, each in a different tuning. The first of

these planned works, the Serenade for Guitar and Optional Percussion, was

completed in 1978. The tuning is based on a 5-limit octatonic scale that contains only

two sizes of whole and half steps.9 Unfortunately, Stone never delivered the promised

guitar, leading Harrison to incorporate the early sketches of a second suite into what

is now the String Quartet Set (1979).10 Both Serenado and the Serenade can be

performed in equal temperament, and they constitute the foundation of Harrisons

25

7 Lou Harrison, letter to Frank Wigglesworth (Lou Harrison Music Manuscripts, MS 132, ser.1, UCSC McHenry).

8 Thomas Stone, Fretted Musical Instrument with Detachable Fingerboards for Providing Multiple Tonal Scales (U.S. Patent 4,132,143, filed January 6, 1977 and issued January 2, 1979). Salmons fretting system for viols is discussed in the introduction, as well as in Leta Miller and Albert Cohen, Music in the Royal Society of London, 16601806 (Detroit: Detroit Studies in Music Bibliography, 1987).

9 For a discussion of the tuning of the Serenade see Bill Alves, The Tuning of Lou Harrisons Serenade for Guitar and Optional Percussion, http://www.billalves.com/porgitaro/serenadetuning.html.

10 Lou Harrison, interview with John Schneider. Joshua Tree, CA, 2002. (UCSC McHenry).

repertoire for guitar. In addition, guitarists such as Tanenbaum and Schneider have

since labored tirelessly (with the composers blessing) to adapt Harrisons pieces for

other plucked strings for performance, and many of his harp and harpsichord pieces

have now become popular as guitar transcriptions. More recently, Schneider

completed a series of suites in different modes by grouping pieces according to

their tunings; by using removable fingerboards, the suites can be performed as a set,

as Harrison originally intended.11

Rather than employing removable fingerboards, the guitar for Nek Chand

requires a fixed and highly idiosyncratic fretboard to accommodate Harrisons tuning

scheme, which is based on pure ratios of the sixth through eleventh harmonics. In

addition to performers Tanenbaum and Schneider, the conversion of the instrument

involved collaboration with a number of other figures. The details of the tuning

calculations were worked out by Bill Slye (19702010), a young guitarist/composer

from the University of California, Santa Cruz who had been studying informally with

Harrison in Aptos. Slye worked with Bill Alves, a Southern California composer and

codirector (with Schneider) of the microtuning festival MicroFest. Slye also recruited

Don Young, CEO of National Reso-Phonic Guitars of San Luis Obispo, California, to

help with the production of the custom instruments. By May 2002 National Reso-

Phonic had built five just intonation tricones, two of which were intended as

loaners to be circulated among guitarists and composers to stimulate further pieces

26

11 Lou Harrison, Por Gitaro, John Schneider, guitar, Mode Records 195, 2008.

for the instrument. Currently four of these guitars are owned by Schneider,

Tanenbaum, guitarist Elliot Simpson (The Hague), and composer Garry Eister (Santa

Maria, California). The fifth instrument is currently on loan to guitarist/composer

Alex Wand (b. 1986).12

Harrisons choice of a specialty guitar should not come as a surprise. He had

written works for found, foraged, or newly constructed instruments since the 1930s,

and had learned that performers (often his friends) were willing to indulge him.13 For

Harrison, the quality of the sound itself was paramount, and he would sooner build a

new instrument than make do with one that could not deliver his ideal sound; he also

vociferously eschewed amplification, always opting to resolve matters of volume and

balance by means of instrumentation and orchestration. For example, in his Concerto

for Pipa with String Orchestra (1997), Harrison chose the Chinese lute for its ability

to be heard over the orchestral ensemble, thinning out the accompaniment in the

quieter passages.14

In the case of the classical guitar, Harrison had pointed to its short sustain and

overall lack of power as the main drawbacks of an instrument for which he otherwise

felt an affinity.15 The tricone resonator addressed all of these issues, offering a louder,

27

12 As we will see in the concluding portion of this chapter, the number of unofficial copies of resonator guitars retrofitted with this particular fretting pattern is continuing to grow.

13 See Miller and Lieberman, Composing a World: Lou Harrison, Musical Wayfarer, 127 ff.

14 Leta Miller, personal communication with the author, 17 February 2010.

15 David Tanenbaum, personal communication with the author, 7 February 2010. Also Lou Harrison, interview with John Schneider, Mode 195.

richer, and more sustaining timbre produced in an entirely acoustic way. From an

extra-musical point of view, the instrument also mirrors the pieces inspiration;

through the filter of Harrisons imagination, the resophonic guitar has been thought

anew, repurposed from its previous context like the recycled sculptures of Chands

fantastical gardens.

Part One: ReminiscenceTracing the History of Harrisons Inspirations

In his inscription to the score of Nek Chand, Harrison refers to the music of the

Hawaiian Craze of the 1920s and 1930s as an inspiration; the sound of those sliding

and waving guitar tones was the sound of the tricone resonator-equipped steel guitar.

Steel guitars are referred to as such not because of the material from which they are

built, but because of the manner in which they are played. Instead of fretting

individual strings with the left hand, the strings are stopped by a metal rod typically

called a steel, which is made of polished steel, brass, ceramic, or glass. Because the

strings are tuned to various triadic configurations, the rod can be used to slide single-

note lines as well as chords. This method of playing, which originates in late

nineteenth-century Hawaiian practices, features the guitar held flat in the lap for

better access. Because the sliding hand approaches the fingerboard from above, rather

than reaching around the neck as with the traditional playing position, Hawaiian

makers began to modify the typical Spanish design around the turn of the century.

Necks were hollowed out and built using a square, rather than D-shaped, section,

28

increasing structural strength and resonance, and steel strings supplanted gut and

silk.16

Some of these design elements, popularized in the early decades of the

twentieth century by notable guitarmakers such as Chris Knutsen and Oscar

Weissenborn, are apparent in the work of John Dopyera, a Slovak immigrant with a

penchant for innovation, as attested by the patents he filed for improved neck-setting

methods for violins, and mechanical optimization of banjo heads.17 In 1924 Dopyera

was approached by George Beauchamp, a vaudeville guitar player who was looking

for a louder, better projecting guitar. Dopyera had already been considering various

resonating devices, and through Beauchamps prodding he finally designed the

tricone resonator in 1926, receiving patents in 1928, 1929, and 1930. Dopyeras

original design was a metal-bodied instrument with a square neck meant exclusively

for slide playing.18 Round-neck, Spanish-style tricone guitars followed by the end of

29

16 Hugh Davies, Hawaiian Guitar Grove Music Online, ed. Deane Root, www.grovemusic.com. Although square-necked guitars are most common for playing with a steel, any guitar can be converted to this style by raising the strings at the nut, so that they would still clear the frets under the weight of the rod.

17 On Knutsens designs, such as the symphony or harp-guitar with its hollow soundboard extension, and his influence on other luthiers see George T. Noe and Daniel L. Most, Chris J. Knutsen: From Harp Guitars to the New Hawaiian Family: History and Development of the Hawaiian Steel Guitar (Everett, WA: Noe Enterprises, 1999), 1215 and 1026; and Gregg Miner, The Knutsen Archives, www.harpguitars.net/knutsen/knutsen_home.htm.

18 See U.S. patents 1762617, www.google.com/patents/US1762617; 1741453, www.google.com/patents/US1741453; and D76382, www.google.com/patents/USD76382.

1928.19

The collaboration between Dopyera and Beauchamp led to the birth of the

National Resonator Instruments company in 1927; however, the entrance of the

United States into the Second World War effectively halted production and led to the

dissolution of the company.20 Nationals from the 1930s became extremely rare,

Figure 1.1 Illustration from one of John Dopyeras patents for the tricone resophonic guitar.

30

19 Bob Brozman, John Dopyera, et al., The History & Artistry of National Resonator Instruments (Fullerton, CA: Centerstream Publishing, 1993), 2729. Brozman presents extensive documentation concerning the companys genesis, the birth of Dopyeras Dobro Company, and the successive invention of the single-cone resonator.

20 Brozman, National Resonator Instruments, 43.

sought after by collectors and performers alike beginning with the folk revival of the

late 1950s and early 1960s. In more recent years, new instruments have been re-

created according to the original specifications by National Reso-Phonic Instruments

of San Luis Obispo, Californiathe company that would eventually bring to life the

uniquely tuned Lou Harrison tricones.

Among the many musicians using National guitars, Sol Hoopii (190253) is

generally credited as the first Hawaiian player to adopt a tricone resonator; he was

given a guitar by National as early as 1926, and was featured extensively in the

companys catalogs. Through his activity in Hollywood and in the recording studio,

Hoopii established a permanent link between Island music and the sound of a

resonator. He provided the soundtrack for popular Hawaiian-themed movies such as

Bird of Paradise (1932), Waikiki Wedding (1937), and the cartoon feature Bettys

Bamboo Isle (1937), and recorded dozens of traditional Hawaiian numbers for

Columbia and Brunswick.21 Other influential players such as the Tau Moe Family,

Sam Ku West, Jim and Bob of The Genial Hawaiians, and David Kane also

performed on National tricones.22 The soundscape they created pervaded the

country.23 Radio programs of Hawaiian music date to 1923, and many stations held

31

21 Ibid., 11516.

22 Ibid., 12134.

23 This popularity of Hawaiian guitars in the 1920s and beyond represents the efforts of a second generation of performers. Most Hawaiian musicians consider Joseph Kekuku (18741932) the founder of the style that grew to be so popular in the following decades; an alternative interpretation suggested by Mantle Hood will be explored later. For several versions of the Kekuku story, see Lorene Ruymar, The Hawaiian Steel Guitar and its Great Hawaiian Musicians (Anaheim Hills, CA: Centerstream Publishing, 1996), 211.

weekly shows dedicated to the style, such as the popular Hawaii Calls (193575); the

music had in television debut in October 1939 when the Honolulu Serenaders

appeared on a broadcast by the Farnsworth Television and Radio Corporation.24

Musicians in other genres, such as Western swing bands in the Texas-Louisiana-

Oklahoma region, and bluesmen in the Mississippi Delta also adopted resonator

instruments.25 Tricone resonator guitars are still employed in popular genres today,

from Hawaiian and country to fingerstyle guitar and blues. Thanks to Harrisons

determination, they have also found an unexpected niche in the classical guitar

repertoire.

The Tuning of Nek Chands Guitar

The exploration of just tuning systems constitutes one of the main features of Lou

Harrisons mature style. The composer, who preferred pure intervals to the otherwise

predictable and limited palette of intervals available in equal temperament, developed

what had been a youthful interest into enthusiastic endorsement and, ultimately,

complete philosophical advocacy. This process can be seen as a quest for freedom; to

Harrison, the identical intervals of equal temperament were ultimately colorless next

to the microtonal gradations provided by a system of pure harmonic ratios. He

incorporated intonational considerations into his music in a remarkably organic way,

32

24 Ruymar, Hawaiian Steel Guitar, 4656.

25 Although the Hawaiian recordings of the 1920s reputedly influenced early Western swing steel guitar players, the link between bottleneck slide blues and Island music is still a matter for speculation. Ibid., 4951.

as shown by the number of instruments he designed and crafted to produce his

required tones; stylistically, he often employed homophonic textures to allow tuning

and temperamental nuances to be heard clearly.

The turning point of Harrisons harmonic journey came in 1949, two years

after suffering a severe nervous breakdown while living in New York Citya crisis

stemming from the combination of a demanding yet unrewarding professional

schedule, difficult romantic relationships, and a general aversion to the chaotic and

noisy metropolitan life. Succored by John Cage and supported by Charles Ives, Frank

Wigglesworth, and Virgil Thomson, among other friends, Harrison embarked on a

lifelong path to recovery after nine months of clinical stay. Part of his therapy

included a biographical reconstruction; the composer interpreted this prescription in a

larger musical sense, retracing the harmonic and tuning theories found in Early

Modern and Medieval European treatises to the works of ancient Greek and Hindu

theorists.26 While immersed in this research, Harrison received a copy of Harry

Partchs Genesis of a Music from Virgil Thomson, who accompanied the gift with a

sibylline invitation to make what he could out of it.27 Partchs theorization of a new

monodic language, based on a forty-three division octave in pure mathematical ratios,

served as a catalyst for the recovering composer to break free from the constraints of

33

26 Miller and Lieberman, Composing a World, 111.

27 Ibid., 44.

both equal temperament and the twelve-tone explorations of his student days.28

After his return to California in 1953, just intonation grew into an outright

obsession for Harrison, who incorporated it in most of his works and progressively

charged it with political and philosophical implications.29 In an early example, the

Strict Songs for eight baritones and chamber orchestra (1955), the composer specified

the ratios for tuning the pentatonic modes employed in each of the four movements;

piano and harp are required to retune, whereas strings, trombones, and voices can

match these pitches. The limited pitch collection of pentatonic and hexatonic modes

allow for uncompromised just tunings, and Harrison explored them extensively; in

1961 he spent his time aboard a freighter to Japan devising forty-three pentatonic

computations in a variety of tunings.30 Harrison completed the move from

accompanied voices to solo keyboard in just intonation with Cinna (1957), a tack-

piano or harpsichord piece which required a complete overhaul of the instruments

tuning. The piece features eleven sizes of seconds and thirds, and five kinds of

fourths, all of which are used to great expressive effect.31

In 1967 Harrison met William Colvig, an electrician with a passion for

34

28 For a concise presentation of Partchs theoretical and aesthetic construction, see Richard Kassell, Harry Partch: BarstowEight Hitchhiker Inscriptions from a Highway Railing at Barstow, California [1968 Version], Music in the United States of America, 9 (Madison, WI: A-R Editions, 2000), xxvixxxvi.

29 See, for instance, the discussion of Pacifika Rondo in Miller and Lieberman, Lou Harrison (2006), 103.

30 Lou Harrison, Music Primer (New York: Peters, 1971), 11017.

31 Leta Miller, ed., Lou Harrison: Selected Keyboard and Chamber Music, 19371994, Music in the United States of America, 8 (Madison, WI: A-R Editions, 1998), xliixliv.

acoustics; the two men would become lifelong partners. Through their combined

efforts, the composers commitment to alternative intonation systems found a new

outlet in instrument building.32 Starting with simple harps and psalteries, the couple

graduated to building and tuning complex ensembles such as the American

Gamelan, an eclectic collection of resonating metallophones tuned to a just D major

scale spanning more than five octaves that they later affectionately nicknamed Old

Granddad. In the following years, Harrison and Colvig would build gamelans for San

Jose State University and Mills College, which they tuned in accordance to

acceptable Javanese standards, but featuring pure, non-beating interval ratios.33

In light of Harrisons penchant for instrument building and alternative tunings,

it should come as no surprise that he decided to cast his Scenes from Nek Chand in

just intonation, or that he modified the standard arrangement of a guitars tuning to

meet his sonic requirements. As we have seen, Harrison was particularly interested in

modes containing only five or six pitches. In an interview with John Schneider, he

mused that he had spent most of his life coming up with new modes, when he

found that a six-note scale occurred naturally in the harmonic series encompassing

overtones six through eleven. Because intervals become progressively smaller as one

ascends further in the series, this collection is the only contiguous six-note mode

35

32 Miller and Lieberman, Composing a World, 5354.

33 Ibid., 16465. Beating refers to the periodical fluctuations in volume caused by the interference between mistuned frequencies.

within an octave.34 For Scenes from Nek Chand, Harrison based his scale on a low G,

resulting in the mode DFGABC#D. As noted by composer and theorist David

Doty, this tuning can also be characterized as otonal, Harry Partchs term for a

collection of pitches derived from the overtone series (in this case, harmonics 1, 3, 5,

7, 9, and 11).35 Example 1.1 shows the overtone series on G with the notes used in

Nek Chand indicated, along with their variance in cents () from equal temperament.

The tuning falls within the so-called eleven-limit, meaning that the eleventh

harmonic is the highest prime number factor necessary to derive the tunings

intervals. Comparing sizes in cents (see Table 1.1), the subminor third DF (~267)

and the neutral seventh DC# (~1049) stand out as the intervals furthest removed

from their equal-tempered counterparts of 300 and 1100. The C# in question is

indeed a close approximation of the quarter tone between C and C# in equal

temperament, and Harrison exploits its poignancy at salient points in the piece, as will

Example 1.1 Harmonic series on G up to the 13th harmonic, with the Nek Chand mode indicated.

36

34 Lou Harrison, interview with John Schneider, 2002.

35 David Doty, National Reso-phonic Just Intonation Guitar Chord Atlas, 2006, www.dbdoty.com/ChordAtlas.pdf. For Partchs definition, see Harry Partch, Genesis of a Music (New York, Da Capo Press: 1947), 160.

be highlighted later.

Such a collection of notes requires an extensive modification of the guitars

tuning and positioning of frets. For Nek Chand, Harrison specified that the strings be

tuned to DADGAD, low to high, a configuration that appears frequently in

fingerstyle acoustic and Celtic guitar playing, but is foreign to most classical settings;

it is likely that Harrison was introduced to the so-called DADGAD tuning by his

pupil Bill Slye, who was a guitarist as well as a student of intonation systems.36 In the

Table 1.1 Interval inventory for Scenes from Nek Chand

37

36 Slyes senior project includes practical consideration for tuning guitars in just intonation, as well as compositions for justly tuned guitars and other instruments. William Slye, Just Intonation Realization. Senior Thesis, BA in Music, University of California, Santa Cruz, 2000.

DADGAD tuning, the shared harmonics between the strings, detailed in Example 1.2,

maximize sympathetic resonance, resulting in a glowing sound when paired with the

tricones rich timbre and long sustain. These overlapping harmonics can also serve as

a reference for tuning, as in the sequence notated in Example 1.3. Such a tuning offers

a great practical advantage for the performer, as GD and DA are the two pure fifths

in the mode of Nek Chand. Moreover, reducing the number of open pitches simplifies

the calculations for the new just-intoned fretboard. These benefits, however, come

with the disadvantage that the guitarist must learn a new set of fingerings.

Example 1.2 Open strings and harmonics of a guitar in DADGAD tuning.

Example 1.3 Sample tuning sequence using harmonics and open strings.

38

Retuning the open strings was by far the simpler part of the process, as the

guitar also needed an entirely new fretboard that would produce the required just

intervals. Because there was not enough time for the construction of an appropriate

instrument, Tanenbaum gave the world premiere of Scenes from Nek Chand in equal

temperament, with the exception of the first movement, which features a slide

throughout and could thus be performed in its intended form. After this first

performance, Harrison and Slye enlisted the help of Schneider, a champion of music

for guitar in alternative tunings, to help realize a tricone guitar in just intonation.

Their work ultimately led to the formulation of a just tuning for the entire twelve

pitches of the chromatic scale, and the resulting guitar inspired the composition of

sixteen new works by other composers.

39

Part Two: ReflectionsAn Analysis of the Musical and Programmatic Elements

of Scenes from Nek Chand

Harrison cast his Scenes from Nek Chand in three movements (slowfast

fast), giving each section a title that would evoke elements from the sculptors

gardens in Chandigarh: The Leaning Lady, The Rock Garden, and The Sinuous

Arcade with Swings in the Arches. Performances of the work average around ten

minutes, with the opening slow movement taking about half the duration of the piece.

Although the music remains confined to the same six-note mode from beginning to

end, the movements differ in terms of texture, structure, and affect to provide variety

and balance.37

The Leaning Lady requires the guitarist to use a slide for the majority of the

movement; the combination of the slide with the metal-bodied resonator recreates the

signature sound of Hawaiian music that Harrison refers to in his program note for the

piece. The main motives dual descending voices also serves as a representation of the

eponymous slanting statue from Chandigarh;38 the use of the slide, which Harrison

encouraged to be as sensuous as one likes, gives the music a plaintive and

meditative feel.39 Structurally, the movement resembles an abbreviated rondo (AB

ACABA) with a short coda; the downwards motive recurs in alternation

40

37 Lou Harrison, Scenes from Nek Chand (Lebanon, NH: Frog Peak Music, 2005). The printed edition of the score is a clean copy of the latest manuscript version, with the inclusion of performance and tuning notes by John Schneider.

38 For a picture of the Leaning Lady see Maizels, Raw Creation, 219.

39 Lou Harrison, interview with John Schneider, 2002.

with episodes that feature a melody played against interrupted dronesHarrisons

personal interpretation of the jhala of classical Indian music.40

The pieces most idiosyncratic pitches, the out-of-tune F and C#, appear in this

movement in different guises; Harrison uses the F mostly as a passing tone, often

sliding it down to D in a vocal gesture, whereas he gives the C# more space, often

letting it ring before resolving it. The resolution itself may occur in either direction,

taking advantage of the almost equal distance from B or D (165 and 150,

respectively). As shown in Examples 1.5 and 1.6, both pitches sometimes appear in

the same passage to build tension; the latter half of the phrase employs only sweeter-

sounding intervals (such as the pure minor third BD), thus offering a satisfying

resolution. Harrison uses a similar device in the movements coda, where the

dissonant pitches become progressively scarcer until they disappear completely.

Example 1.4 Opening motive from The Leaning Lady

41

40 The Jhala is a quick section at the end of a Ragas fixed composition that often features a melodic pattern played against an interrupted drone. Harrison was particularly attracted to this texture, which he called Indias answer to the Alberti Bass; he wrote several pieces that makes allusion to the technique, such as Avalokiteshvara (1964), the Suite for Violin and American Gamelan (1974), and the eponymous Jahla in the Form of a Ductia to Pleasure Leopold Stokowski on his Ninetieth Birthday (1972). See Miller and Lieberman, Lou Harrison, 55.

The gliding melody of Harrisons The Leaning Lady is not the first example

of a musical thread connecting India to Hawaii. In an article on the relationship

between Hawaiian steel guitar playing and its music, Mantle Hood reports the

description of an 1884 performance by a man named Davion, an alleged stowaway

traveler from India, who rested the guitar in his lap and played it with a rod held in

the fretting hand. Hood notes the resemblance to the playing technique of the

gottuvadyam, a type of Indian veena whose name literally means sliding rod

instrument, which belongs to a tradition that could date back as far as 200 B.C.41 He

Example 1.5 Jhala-like passage featuring the alternation of far and more consonant intervals in The Leaning Lady.

Example 1.6 Fading of more pungent intervals in The Leaning Lady

42

41 Mantle Hood, Musical Ornamentation as History: The Hawaiian Steel Guitar, Yearbook for Traditional Music 15 (1983): 145. Hood also suggests that Joseph Kekuku, the assumed father of Hawaiian guitar playing, could have witnessed or heard of this performance, and then went on to popularize the technique in a new musical context on the Islands and beyond.

supports this hypothesis by alluding to a certain untalkable affinity between vocal

and instrumental styles found in both Hawaiian and Indian musical idioms, with the

voice and guitar imitating one another through range, color, and articulation. Drawing

from recorded performances of Hawaiian music, Hood also highlights examples of

parallel passages in falsetto (voice) and harmonics (guitar), the similar use of glides

up to and down from the main note, and the careful employment of non-vibrato,

straight tones as ornaments.42

The second movement of Harrisons suite, The Rock Garden, features a much

brisker tempo, and its boisterous single-note lines offer a radical departure from the

placid atmosphere of the opening; the straightforward formal plan, a ternary structure

with a brief coda, suits the exuberance of the music. Because of the scalar nature of

the main theme (see Example 1.7) and the quick tempo, the undecimal C# goes

almost unnoticed until the end of the first part, when it is highlighted by an insistent

repeated-note passage. In the contrasting middle section, Harrison employs the fullest

chords of the entire piece, a stack of fourths obtained from three open strings of the

guitar, alternating with single-note passages in a call-and-response that culminates in

a playful syncopated episode (see Example 1.8). Although there are no explicit

programmatic references, The Rock Garden seems to convey Harrisons excitement

for Nek Chands creation in the jungle of Chandigarh.

43

42 Hood, Musical Ornamentation as History, 146.

Clearer extra-musical connotations return in the pieces last movement,

inspired by the architectural detail of Chands garden that struck Harrisons

imagination most vividly. In conversation with John Schneider, Harrison conveyed

his amazement at some of the pictures he had seen of the arcade:

A stream goes through the property and hes built an arcade, literally, following the shore. Its very big, and there are sizable arches made of bags of piled up concrete, but they are real arches. The arcade is two-sided, that is to say there are arches, and a roof with banisters so you can promenade on the top. In every arch there is an iron-chained swing for two people. Its just beautiful.43

The music, in 3/4 for the first time in the piece, is marked amiably swinging; as

instructed by Harrison, the guitarist is advised to incorporate a relaxed pushing-and-

Example 1.7 Opening motive of The Rock Garden.

Example 1.8 Syncopated retransition in The Rock Garden.

44

43 Harrison, interview with John Schneider, 2002.

pulling into the phrasing to convey such an affect.44 The texture recalls the implied

polyphony and style bris typical of seventeenth-century French lute music found in

the works of Ennemond Gaultier and Ren Mesangeau, and then reprised by the

school of clavecinistes. This peculiar textural approach represents perhaps another

influence form Harrisons youth coming to the fore in the piece, as the composer was

particularly interested in Baroque music in his formative years.45

Harrison chose to write this final movement as an estampie, a medieval dance

that he had employed in about a dozen other works, including the String Quartet Set,

the Grand Duo (1987), the Concerto for Pipa and String Orchestra, and the

Harpsichord Sonata (1999).46 Traditionally, estampies feature repeating verselets

followed by a short refrain with alternating open or closed endings; in this case,

Harrison crafted a novel form, using two refrains of similar music, albeit with the

melodic incipit of the second transposed down a third, which are then repeated

without changes, yielding the scheme AxAy, BxBy, CxCy, DxDy, ExEy, CxCy, FxFy.

The last notes of each